Emirates Team New Zealand booked an America’s Cup rematch with Oracle Team USA on Monday, beating Sweden’s Artemis Racing in the lone race of the day to win the challenger final 5-2.
The Kiwis came into the day with a 4-2 lead in the best-of-nine series and needing just one victory to advance to the 35th America’s Cup Match.
The decisive day got off to an anti-climactic start when the first race was abandoned as the winds dropped and neither boat could make it to the finish line of the shortened course within the 25-minute limit.
After a couple of hours of waiting, the race got off the line and skipper Peter Burling’s New Zealand delivered a textbook performance in light winds for a convincing win.
“We’re obviously pretty excited,” said Burling, adding that the configuration of his team’s foiling catamaran was “spot on”.
“I think it showed during that race — the boat was just going seriously fast,” Burling said. “And we got a good start,, so it’s all the little things we’ve worked on all week.
“We definitely feel like we’re in gret shape to take on Oracle now.”
Team New Zealand, who fell victim to Oracle Team USA’s remarkable comeback in San Francisco four years ago, will try to thwart the Americans’ bid for a third straight America’s Cup crown in the finals that get underway on Saturday.
Oracle go into the first-to-seven final with a valuable one-point advantage thanks to topping the standings in the round-robin phase of qualifying.
But Burling and his crew are battle hardened, having come through a frightening capsize in heavy winds in a challenger semi-final race against Britain’s Land Rover BAR last week.
No one was seriously hurt, but it needed a massive repair effort just to resume racing.
“One thing about this team, they’ve dug super-deep to get us to this point,” Burling said.
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